Irish politics has been pretty wild lately.
Severe election warning
A raging bull appears to be on par with a calm stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon in comparison to the continuous and instant twists and turns in Irish politics.
The recession has hit Ireland hard, and the politics has gone from “We need no stinkin’n bailout!” to “EU-IMF – Our god and savior!” in a few short months, followed by a joint Irish-IMF austerity plan to finance the bailout, dubbed “the finance bill”.
EU agreed to bail out Ireland, provided that a number of austerity measures were put in place to rectify the disastrous economics of Ireland as well as to provide some long-term stability in for Ireland in the international markets, based on a joint and broad political decision to drive through these measures.
No such luck.
The Irish currently have (as of the time of this article):
- A general election that has been called for on the 11th of March,
- A cabinet that consists of the minimum number of ministers allowed by the Irish constitution, following the resignation of 6 of the ministers.
- A taoiseach that has no real power after resigning from his role as the party leader of Fianna Fáil, buit will remain in power until the election,
- A taoiseach that is effectively violating the constitution, as it requires the taoiseach to resign if he lacks the support of a majority of the government,
- The greens has withdrawn from the coalition government, leaving Fianna Fáil in an absolute minority position, without power to do anything, and with no support
from anyone else, - A train-wreck of a finance bill waiting to be voted through, that will for most people mean that they are better off on welfare or as unemployed,
- TD’s that apparently thinks canvassing is more important than current dail work to solve the existing problems in the country,
- Forget the first point – it’s now general election on the 24th of February.
Who knows when it will be, tomorrow…
The list goes on…
This is a turkey of a play, and a tragicomedy at that.
Comedy in watching the actions of the politicians, as they try to outperform Ministry of silly walks, and tragedy in that everyone else suffers as a result of their actions.
Mildly put:
I’m frustrated, and I am not alone, and the longer this goes on, I fear that this will not end well.
